Originally Posted by KillerRabbit
The other choices - which mindflayer did you take with you, is Lae'zel happy or angry - are cosmetic.

It's a railroad - you are going to end the game with a mindflayer.

Okay, fine, the devs have made it clear that they were always going for the Jesus archetype. Do you sacrifice yourself for the world? But Tav's decision didn't feel tragic in the way that Gale's did. There's nothing leading up to it. Some deux ex machina determines that Tav needs a mindflayer.

This railroad is my biggest gripe with the ending. I equate it with the obnoxious Starchild from Mass Effect 3. It's absolutely terrrible and there is indeed no lead up! It feels like a last minute asspull for some extra forced drama.

No matter what you did in the past, how hard you tried to avoid this outcome, how many allies you gathered, how many tricks you had up your sleave, doesn't matter that you might have had a friendly and helpful mind flayer in the city and a ring to shield it from the brain or freed the psionic master who should have been able to help you out without any sacrifice (you have to go to a literal hell, obtain a powerful weapon and kill Raphael to even get to him - it really cheapens that path and makes you look dumb for even bothering), you're suddenly presented with this specific set of choices and either you go for it or your whole journey gets invalidated and it's a game over. This is the only time where I reloaded and metagamed out of frustration to put a throwaway character (Karlach) in my party to have an ending I could actually enjoy.

Besides, what kind of Jesus ending nonsense explanation is this, when the default option is simply going with whatever the Emperor tells you to do and trusting him, like you've had to throughout the majority of the game. You actually have to go out of your way and suggest becoming a mind flayer yourself to become this martyr figure. Things only get complicated if you care about the githyanki race and Lae'zel so the sacrifice is actually for them, not even for the people of Faerun.